


A Series Of Dry Questions About Police Work

by secretsofluftnarp (luftie)



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Canon Gay Relationship, Dorks in Love, First Meetings, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, gay issues in New York City in the 1980s/90s, sexual content presented sweetly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-25 09:07:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9812600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luftie/pseuds/secretsofluftnarp
Summary: -Actually, Ray and I met over the phone…Ray was a source for an article I was writing for The New Yorker. I asked him a series of dry questions about police work, and his answers had me in stitches.- We met for a drink that night, and we’ve been together ever since.Kevin Cozner and Ray Holt, before they met, when they met, and early on in their relationship.Most of the story is rated 'T,' with the exception of Chapter 4, which earns the 'M' rating.





	1. An Extensive Bibliography

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Young Kevin is fairly smart, except when he admittedly isn't.
> 
> Note: With the exception of Kevin’s little brother, Marty, Kevin's social sphere is all OCs. If you're a TAH fandom person, please feel free to picture ‘Gary’ as played by Mark Gagliardi.

**1980-1986**  
_New Rochelle, NY_

  
Young Kevin was careful, and studious, and not a freaking idiot.

He knew that in his all-boys prep school, there were bulky idiots, like Cliff, for whom it didn’t matter how many boys they kissed, because everybody was afraid of Cliff and also nobody believed it. He also knew there were skinny twerps, like him, who would never, ever get away with it.

Kevin blended in. He could not do otherwise. Thankfully, where he went to high school, being buttoned-up and clean-cut was normal. He knew how to walk that line without raising any flags for being too effeminate. Every student wore button-downs and v-neck sweaters. Kevin played tennis, knew how to maneuver a sailboat, and was formidable at chess. He knew going out for the wrestling team would have been an act of pure insanity. Swimming would also have been a problem.

Once, in a literature class, the instructor asked a question about the roles of Achilles and Patroclus. “It’s a love story,” Kevin blurted out, barely aware that he had spoken. The class had laughed, and the instructor scoffed and assumed he hadn’t actually been paying attention. No, these are male characters. Someone didn’t do the reading.

Kevin vowed never to allow himself another moment like that. But he absolutely _had_ done the reading. He suspected he was right, so he went and did more. It turned out Aeschylus clearly depicted Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. Plato had too. Shakespeare had taken the male pairing and run with it.

And it wasn’t just them. Sure, there were many allusions to male-male romance in antiquity, but there was plenty of it in modern literature as well, especially in poetry. This wasn’t a shock, more of an uncovering of a truth Kevin had long suspected. And it was romance that drew him in, even more than the dirty parts. Especially doomed romance. It seemed realistic.

(That wasn’t to say he didn’t appreciate the dirty parts. He knew some words for sex in Latin, but given the nature of his schooling, every other teenage boy he knew _also_ knew some words for sex in Latin. Kevin probably had a deeper appreciation than his classmates for how specific the terminology could be.)

Kevin followed the threads, and uncovered scholarship. It taught him how to do his own research. He cross-checked his references and hunted down rare books. Before he knew it, he had an extensive bibliography.

Kevin met Vicky when he almost tripped over her in a used book store. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading a Virginia Woolf anthology. Kevin was holding a copy of _No Exit_ in French, because that suited his mood these days.

“Sartre sucks,” Vicky said, judging him through her coke-bottle glasses. She expected that he would either snap at her (the most likely), or be startled and start apologizing. 

Kevin did neither. Like he would do many, many times more in his life, he displayed what looked like friendly interest and calmly approached an argument he fully intended to win. He joined her on the floor. “Why, what are you reading?”  
  
It was a genuine question. They talked for hours, wandering around a town that wasn’t designed for wandering. At the end of it, Kevin couldn’t say for sure whether he had won. But they kept talking, for more afternoons, about how the other kids in their respective schools were dinks, how they understood literature better than anybody (even though they disagreed), and how they were both going to be genius writers someday.

Vicky showed up at tennis practice, leaning on the fence like someone who believed in deliberately disregarding manners, and called Kevin over.

“Kevin? Really?” said Chad, Brad, Riley, and Chet. Cliff looked away.

Vicky told Kevin to walk her home, so he did. She said one of the guys from her school had been hanging around too closely. It boggled Kevin’s mind that all he needed to do was show up, stand next to her, and the guy was nowhere to be found, but it worked.

Kevin figured she had some idea that she was helping him out too, that it was helpful for him to be seen with a girl and let people assume. They could protect each other. His parents seemed relieved, and largely left him alone about it.

Kevin’s little brother, Marty, heckled him for spending all his time in the library (nerd) and then for spending all his time with Vicky (kissy noises). This was fine. Little brothers were notoriously useless.

Kevin started hanging around at Vicky’s house. She tried to get him to listen to art rock records, but Kevin said he had never really cared about music. (That was a bit of a fib; he had quite a bit of knowledge about classical music  -- his father studied it -- but it had a tendency to feel like homework. This did too.) For his birthday, Vicky gave him a volume of Proust, in French, which he was later immensely grateful for.  
  
They almost kissed, once. When their faces were about an inch apart, Vicky stopped.

“Hey. Do you actually want to do this?”  
  
“Not really,” Kevin admitted.  
  
“Cool,” Vicky said, visibly relieved. “Me neither.”

  
  
The small prestigious liberal arts college Kevin attended upstate was full of Kevins and Vickys and good friends who wanted to talk about philosophy until 3 am and not date anyone at all. Kevin wound up mentioning his old research on Greco-Roman sexuality to Christopher, a graduate student in art history, who seemed quite a bit more interested than Kevin thought he would be.

Which was fine, except that Christopher was a teaching assistant and Kevin was _in his class_ , so what they wound up doing was definitely against the school’s honor code. But Christopher had a knack for finding secluded places around campus, and Kevin rationalized that this course wasn’t even in his area of concentration.

They couldn’t be seen, of course, even by roommates who might get the implications of what they were doing. Christopher took him to a quiet corner of the rare book stacks of the old library, where they muffled their mouths with one hand, and put the other hand down each other’s pants. It made Kevin’s heart beat very fast for a very short amount of time. He knew it was stupid. He kept coming back. He did not like how alone he felt afterward. At the end of the semester, when their relationship was no longer explicitly forbidden, Christopher suddenly lost interest.  
  
Kevin presented at a conference his senior year, and met a very drunk history major, Gary, who hit on him with a desperation that was almost sweet. They took advantage of an unexpected hotel room vacancy. Gary was a loud, needy little muppet of a man, who was deeply mistaken about the exile of Ovid, but who made soft noises in bed. After the conference, Gary wrote him increasingly unhinged letters that he wasn’t sure what to make of, until Gary revealed that he was engaged, to a woman, and had been for a while, and Kevin said: Gary. Listen. You’re cut off.

Kevin was a little bit of an idiot. Gary was definitely the bigger idiot.

Kevin spent the year after undergrad as an intern for the New Yorker, largely fact-checking, and worked his way up to writing the occasional feature. He became very well acquainted with the arts and culture pages, and the people who wrote them, and some of the people in them. When he filled out his graduate applications he gave preference to schools which would let him stay in the city, with its arts-and-culture people and the vague sense of a future for himself somewhere.

Gary called him, muttering something about him and Teresa having problems, he was in the city, he needed a place to stay for a bit. Kevin rolled his eyes and invited him in. Gary was still wrong about Ovid, and also about whether it was okay to eat crackers on the couch, use up all the hot water, and whine until Kevin, in Gary’s words, “gave him a dick massage.” Kevin kicked him out after a week.

Kevin was accepted to a Masters program at Columbia, which was the best thing he could have hoped for. He believed in the preservation of knowledge which unearthed universal truths. He was fine with teaching writing to undergraduates who didn’t want to be writers. He could continue to freelance on the side.

Kevin mailed his New Yorker clips to Vicky. One he was particularly proud of made reference to the Proust volume she had given him years ago. Vicky wrote back: _See, I told you we were geniuses._  
  
  
  
**September, 1987  
** _Manhattan_

The Columbia English department adjunct office had three desks, and one phone. Kevin tapped his pen against a pile of papers he didn’t want to grade while he waited for it to ring.  
  
“Cozner? No way,” said a voice outside the door.  
  
Kevin looked up, and then sat bolt upright. It was Gary. “What are you doing here?”

“Um, a visiting fellowship in Medieval History? What are _you_ doing here?”

“Working as an adjunct for the English department. As it says on the door.” Kevin did not want to react with suspicion, but this was not quite all right. “Gary. Did you follow me here?”

“What? No. Dude. I had no idea you were here.”

Kevin put his fingers to his brow at being called _dude_. He sighed. “How is your _fiancee_ , Gary?”  
  
“Wife, actually.”  
  
Kevin rolled his eyes so hard it was almost physically painful. “Gary. I would love to stay and chat -- that’s a lie, I wouldn’t at all -- but I’m waiting on a call from my editor.”  
  
Gary scoffed. “Sure you are.”

The phone on the desk rang, as if on cue. Kevin made a face that barely pretended to be an apology, and picked it up as Gary wandered off.  
  
“Sorry, one moment,” Kevin said into the phone, fumbling for a spare piece of paper to write on. “Let me make sure I have this straight. You’d like me to find a source from _inside_ the NYPD?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't end up referencing it here, but a book I'm really enjoying (& which helped me piece together some of these references) is E.M. Forster's [Maurice](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3103.Maurice). In which you have British schoolboys using classical references to piece together the concept of homo-romantic love. In 1914.


	2. The Queerest Thing I Ever Heard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Young Raymond Holt vs. the world

**1975-1986** ****  
Queens, NY

Raymond Jacob “R.J.” Holt, age fourteen, zipped down the street on a ten-speed bicycle with ruthless efficiency. He made minimal stops, acquiring the items on his list as he went: light bulb, baby food, pot roast, ink bottle. He arrived home at five-thirty p.m. exactly, passed the light bulb to his twelve-year-old sister, Debbie (who rolled her eyes at him, but climbed up and replaced the burnt-out hall light anyway), put the roast in the oven and set a timer, changed Baby James’ tie (he could barely handle a half-windsor, that baby), put his (decent, but not extraordinary) report card in the basket marked ‘inbox’ on his mother’s desk, and carefully re-filled her fountain pen so she could sign it when she arrived home.

 _Ding._ The roast was done at six p.m. sharp. Debbie said it wasn’t any good, which Raymond considered less consequential than it being timely.

Raymond’s mother, Renee, had returned to law school, and was rarely seen until late into the evening. His father, Jacob Holt, owned an upscale menswear and home goods import business, and would often close up shop on his own. Initially, his father’s relative absence and the prospect of his mother’s return to law school had filled him with trepidation at the prospect of a parentless existence, but a plan soon fell into place. Raymond would run the house.

And he did a fine job, often enough. Debbie had stopped arguing with him over trivial things once she had her own babysitting money (Baby James actually belonged to Aunt Estelle and Uncle Charlie; Debbie watched him on Tuesdays). Raymond used to reward himself by sneaking into his father’s office to see his collection of antique globes, but, well. He was no longer a child.

Raymond spent his downtime with Sammy, a good kid who aspired to be a bad influence. Lately, Sammy had become obsessed with sneaking into R-rated movies, even though, Raymond noted, Sammy had older siblings who would have been happy to bring him. Raymond had a manner which would often get him mistaken for an adult (broad shoulders, formal speech). Half the time they would try to pass Raymond off as Sammy’s guardian, and half the time they would sneak in.

While Raymond normally wouldn’t flaunt a rule in this way, he was very fond of spending time with Sammy. He and Sammy both liked action movies starring well-dressed black men with witty catchphrases. They would quote these to each other, drawing imaginary guns, flipping their imaginary sunglasses.

Sammy had been talking about the latest release for weeks. Raymond found it to be a string of poorly choreographed fight scenes filmed as an excuse for extensive female nudity. Sammy was very confused by how Raymond seemed _disappointed_ by this, and would not drop the subject.

“Man, you don’t care about Dynamite Jackson’s titties?” Sammy said, finishing his soda on a bench outside the movie theater.  
  
Raymond shrugged. “She is a pleasantly proportioned woman.”

“R.J., that is the queerest thing I ever heard.”

Something about hearing Sammy say _queer_ softened something in him. He was, perhaps, so starved for warmth that he heard what he wanted to hear. Raymond, who at that point in his life had a lot to learn about reading social cues, went to put his hand in the crook of Sammy’s arm.  
  
Sammy slapped his hand away. “Damn, R.J.! That is a _bad thing_.”

Raymond didn’t know if Sammy was posturing, if it was possible that Sammy liked him or not. He thought Sammy was a coward regardless. Raymond told himself he was angry, not embarrassed, which, upon later reflection, probably wasn’t the whole truth.

 

As Raymond got older, there seemed to be more and more cracks in what he had thought was his predictable, stable home life. His father’s business was robbed, and the police seemed to put minimal effort into investigation. They even brushed him off in person, claiming they didn’t understand him. (The entire family knew that Jacob Holt, a Barbadian immigrant, spoke better English than the cops did.) One Christmas, Uncle Charlie was wrongfully arrested, when he did not fit the description of the alleged suspect at _all_ (wrong height, wrong build, wrong age, no facial tattoos).  
  
A different sort of person might have taken a different lesson from these incidents. Raymond Jacob Holt decided that the police were lazy, and that he could do a better job.

Raymond’s enemies were crime, rule-breakers, and clerical error. In his early years in policing, he double-checked other people’s work, whether he was technically allowed to or not. He learned more languages, so as not to ignore tips and witnesses that were too often ignored. He cracked some cases just because others said he couldn’t.

It was not often like the action movies, except when it was. _Put down the yo-yo and back away from the girl._

His superiors would give him dormant cases, deemed unsolvable, and he would find the holes in their logic with his trademark ruthless efficiency.

“What the heck, Jim,” his all-white colleagues said, “why don’t you ever smile?”

Jim had been the only other black man in the building, a custodian who had retired three years prior. Raymond found that correcting them on this point only encouraged them.

 

Raymond was initially protective of his private life, before he really had a ‘private life’ to speak of. Plus there was that rumor that being gay gave you cancer, which turned out not to be a rumor, but also turned out not to be cancer. Cancer can be treated, said his boyfriend, the doctor. 

He had met Frederick in an establishment where neither of them belonged. They stood along the wall, sipping their beers and making minimal eye contact. They then engaged in a series of subtle nods which translated to “let’s you and I get out of here,” and then Raymond was in Frederick’s car.

“You’re not a cop, are you?”  
  
Raymond chose his words carefully. “I am a gay man. I am not on duty, and this is not a sting. That being said, please do not offer me any recreational pharmaceuticals.”

Their relationship was something the both of them wanted, and neither was sure how to have. Raymond presumed that the reason being in a relationship seemed like work from the get-go (including in bed) was due to an intrinsic part of his nature (and sexuality). One couldn’t just put two men like them together and expect things to work out.

But Raymond liked the sound and smell and warmth of Frederick sleeping next to him. There wasn’t any doubt in his mind that this was a version of where he was supposed to end up.

Raymond was a nester, at heart. He wanted to be settled, in a meticulously-run home. If he had to deal with a world that was hostile in general and particularly hostile to his gayness and blackness, day-in, day-out, he wanted a sanctuary.

It was possible that they both agreed to this without thinking about compromises necessary for living together. At first they didn’t fight, and then they fought often, without raising their voices. Raymond found ways in which Frederick was betraying his trust, some of which were real.

“Why are we meeting at a neutral location?” Frederick asked, arms folded, across the diner table from Raymond.  
  
“I found evidence that you either _are_ dealing in recreational pharmaceuticals, or you have a serious drug problem. I am giving you the opportunity to tell me which it is.” He handed Frederick a small black ledger he had found behind a dresser.  
  
“Word of advice, Ray. Don’t interrogate me in a diner. Demoralizing.” He opened the ledger and held it so Raymond could see it as he flipped through, page after page of initials and notations crossed out in pen. “These aren’t recreational, see? _Deceased._ We’ve been unofficially -- _very_ unofficially -- redistributing painkillers to AIDS patients. You gonna report me?”

Raymond did not, and he did not ask who ‘we’ was. When a detective in his precinct found a similar case, Raymond convinced him it wasn’t worth investigating, that he had bigger fish to fry. He was becoming more adept in his powers of persuasion.

But, alas, not toward Frederick. When it was clear what passion they had had faded from their relationship, Raymond looked outward, accusing Frederick of unfaithfulness. Frederick accused Raymond of throwing one of Frederick’s prized possessions in the garbage, which he hadn’t -- he had dropped it into the East River. They declared their breakup ‘mutual.’

 

**September, 1987**

Raymond didn’t miss Frederick. He missed intimacy, but he had missed that for a long time already. What he really missed was the company of anyone who appreciated _wit_ . What passed for humor with the boneheads at work was...lacking.  
  
Madeleine Wuntch appreciated wit, but she had taken him entirely the wrong way. In retrospect, he should not have agreed to see her at his home. He had not been expecting her elaborate lingerie; she had not been expecting him to say he was gay. She had left immediately. They were, unfortunately, still desk-mates.

Raymond had hoped to continue being friendly and polite. By his observation, she had turned petty, and vengeful. He suspected her of hiding their shared stapler.

He had, of course, already wanted to be out at work, but now he had to make sure he got the word out first, before anyone could use a simple fact against him. He made announcements, which his peers did not seem to appreciate.

“Great,” his command had said. “ _Another_ weirdo.”

Raymond found he said it far more often than others deemed necessary. It was easier to keep saying it than not.  
  
Hello, here is my $13.78 for the grocery bill, I’m gay.  
  
I’m gay. And _you_ have the right to remain silent.

Sorry, I’m gay. I do not have a moment for Greenpeace.

Raymond had continued to make a record number of arrests, and found that others dismissed these cases as ‘homo stuff’: murder at the ballet, money laundering at the museum market, illegitimate wine cellar dealings. These were interesting cases! And nobody gave a _rat’s patoot._

“Holt!” the receptionist shouted across the bullpen. “I’m transferring you a call from a frickin’ _reporter_. Sounds like a fruit.”

Several people snorted. Cops hated reporters, except when they wrote fawning profiles, which they had largely been refusing to do, lately.  
  
Raymond picked up the phone.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This rearranges Raymond's timeline slightly (he says he's been an openly gay cop since 1987, the Madeleine incident was canonically '89), but it made a little more sense to me this way.


	3. A Series of Dry Questions About Police Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wine puns. Kissing.

**September, 1987**

Kevin wedged the phone receiver between his ear and shoulder. This would only be a few minutes, he told himself, and then he could get back to writing -- and reading, and grading, and the half-dozen other things he needed to do tonight.

“I don’t want to take up too much of your time. You’re obviously busy, Officer…”  
  
“Detective,” Holt corrected.  
  
“...Detective Holt.” Kevin did not like this. Talking to the police made him nervous, and he was doubtful that the detective had much to add to his story. “My name is Kevin, I’m a writer for _The New Yorker_. I’m doing a piece on the series of high-end wine-related forgeries that you helped uncover.”

“Oh! _The_ _New Yorker_ ,” Raymond said, with a lilt in his voice, impressed. He leaned back in his chair. “I’m glad you’ve decided to cover the story. I, for one, believe it’s an issue of great... _import_.”

Kevin smiled in spite of himself, and relaxed. Was that a play on words? This wasn’t the response he had anticipated.

“The crime itself, as you know, is rather simple,” Raymond explained. “A bottle of high-end wine can go for thousands of dollars. A counterfeiter merely has to obtain one example of a rare vintage, match the bottles, falsify the labels, fill them with whatever passable _dreck_ they think will adequately imitate the contents, and present them as the real thing. And there you have it.” He spread his hands. “ _Wine fraud_.”

Goodness. There was something about Raymond’s voice that drew him in, and left him hanging. If Kevin’s hair had been long enough, he would have twirled a lock around his finger. He held the receiver closer to his lips. “And how did you uncover such a thing?”

“It was quite by accident. We were interviewing neighbors about a series of break-ins, and one of them happened to mention he was in the wine business. I asked him a number of friendly questions about varietals, and you could say he drew a sauvignon _blank."_

Kevin stifled a laugh, which took great effort. “Goodness. You’re _hilarious._ ” He wondered if saying so was too personal for talking to the _cops._ Thankfully, Raymond kept talking.

“It turned out the operation was targeted to bilk some local rival millionaires who were competitive about the contents of their respective cellars.”

“Why do you suppose they did it?”  
  
Raymond made another explanatory hand gesture. “Sour grapes.”

Kevin cracked up, genuinely this time, before he could stop himself. “May I quote you?” Kevin asked, regaining his breath, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. “May I quote every single thing you’ve said so far?”

“Please do. In fact -- “ Raymond paused to glance around the bullpen, to see if anyone was listening to his call, and then decided he didn’t give a damn. “If you like, we could meet up for a drink this evening. Off the record. I know a place with a wine selection not quite so pricey as what we’ve been discussing, but still quite nice.”

“Of course,” Kevin said, without thinking. Then he realized he was having several thoughts at once. “Wait…”

“I am asking you out,” Raymond said, loudly and in a rush, lest Kevin get the wrong impression. Then he slowed, and quieted. “You sound attractive.”

“I sure am,” Kevin said, twirling the phone cord like his imaginary hair. “Are you?”

The resulting pause was so long that Kevin nearly panicked. Then Raymond spoke again.  
  
“Why don’t you join me for a drink tonight and you can see for yourself.”

“Is this how you talk to all your callers?” Kevin was being cute. He did not know he could _be_ cute. It was absurd, and it was definitely happening.

“No,” Raymond said on the other end, with utmost seriousness. “Not in the slightest.”

  
  
Raymond had a bit of a _thing_ for writers. At least, he imagined they led enviably glamorous lives, hammering away at their word processors like rock musicians _slaying_ the guitar. Raymond was already a fan, and whatever trepidation he felt about this doubled when Kevin entered the bar looking tall, meticulous, tapered.

Oh no.

He was _beautiful._

Raymond got a corner booth, near the back, where they could sit close to each other without attracting too much attention. For Kevin’s sake, he thought.

They made observations about the selection. “Are you old enough to drink?” Raymond half-joked.  
  
“I’m twenty-five,” Kevin half-laughed, but he also over-articulated this fact, hoping this made him sound older.  
  
“You have a boyish charm.” Raymond said. What was he _saying_? Backtrack.  “And excellent posture. You could pass for much older as well.”

Kevin told him that he’d been working on something positively _ancient._ Raymond was delighted to hear about his studies. At some point they started drinking. Kevin started talking about wine fraud through the ages, how the Greeks believed in watering it down (nonsense, they agreed), and said something _very_ racy about Dionysus.

Raymond suspected that the professor-to-be had a blush, and the wine was beginning to bring it out. Raymond wanted to reach out and touch him, badly, and could hardly ever remember feeling that impulse quite so strongly. _Don’t let this one get away_ , a voice in the back of his mind said, and this time it wasn’t talking about a fleeing criminal.

Kevin asked him what he did all day, and Raymond opted not to dwell too much on homicide. “It has been helpful to have some knowledge of the arts. I once uncovered thousands of dollars in art forgery because someone misspelled ‘Renoir.’”

Kevin talked a bit about art history, and an earlier piece he had researched for _The_ _New Yorker_. Raymond said he had read Kevin’s earlier byline, and appreciated the Proust reference. Kevin looked astonished, and charmed.

Raymond meandered back to the case that had brought them together. “Another difficulty with detecting a rare wine forgery,” he said, “is some consumers may encounter genuine older wines that has matured and simply not like the taste.”

“Is that a double entendre?” Kevin said, clearly drunk.

“No. Would you like it to be?”

Kevin’s eyebrows flicked upward. The motion was quick, and subtle, and Raymond loved it immediately.

Raymond moved his hand, palm upward, toward Kevin. “I have a younger sister who practices palmistry and fortune-telling. I don’t believe her conclusions in the slightest, but she says you can tell from these arbitrary and predictable arrangement of line formations over time that I am not yet thirty.”

Kevin thought Raymond had beautiful hands. He could not yet say so. He extended a hand of his own, palm-up. “These...arbitrary formations?”

“You have long fingers,” Raymond observed. “She says a long-fingered person seeks…details. Earthly delights. Physical...connection.”

Their eyes met, silently, for several moments. A voice interrupted, asking if they were ready for the check.

“Yes, please,” they both muttered, argued briefly over who was paying, and began what Kevin would only remember as a mad dash back to his apartment.

 

Except it wasn’t a mad dash. It couldn’t have been. When they stepped onto Kevin’s stoop the night was still, and clear, and warm. Raymond’s fingers were intertwined in his, as though they had always been there. And, not hurried at all, Raymond kissed him, out here, in front of the entire world.

(There was, in actuality, one elderly woman walking her dog, two youths exiting a convenience store in the opposite direction, and one taxicab, leaving the scene. Raymond had taken note of these and deemed their threat level minimal, keeping his glances barely perceptible, so as not to alarm Kevin.)

Raymond was an excellent kisser. Kevin was used to kissing being an afterthought; a rough, insistent signal that the kisser was desperate to get handsy. Raymond was none of these things.  
  
“Come upstairs,” Kevin said, because he did not want to let go.  
  
“I will come upstairs in order to make plans, because I would very much like to see you again,” Raymond said, with meaningful eye contact. “That is why I am coming upstairs.”

Inside, Raymond did exactly what he said he was going to do. He outlined their mutual interest in tennis, the museum, the symphony. He made sure they compared calendars, as Kevin was a busy graduate student. They came up with a few dates, one a few days from now.

Raymond kissed him again, warm and unhurried, and departed.

Kevin collapsed against the door with a bemused, confused, joyful sigh.


	4. Romance Languages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin turned playful again. “Are you trying to seduce me?”
> 
> “No,” Raymond deadpanned. “I am _successfully_ seducing you.”
> 
>    
> (The only chapter that really earns the 'M' rating.)

Questus eram, pharetra cum protinus ille soluta  
legit in exitium spicula facta meum,  
lunavitque genu sinuosum fortiter arcum,  
'quod' que 'canas, vates, accipe' dixit 'opus!'  
Me miserum! certas habuit puer ille sagittas.

 _Such was the burden of my plaint when, on a sudden, Cupid lowered his quiver_  
 _and drew forth there from arrows to pierce my heart._  
 _Then, bending his curving bow with a will upon his knee, he said,_  
_"Poet, here is matter_ _for thy song."_ _  
Ah, hapless me! Love's arrow did but all too surely find its mark._

\-- Ovid, _Amores,_ Book 1

 

**Fall/Winter, 1987**

They had been going on dates for weeks. Actual dates, in actual public, actually getting to know each other, all of which was new to Kevin. It turned out they were a formidable pair in doubles tennis (Kevin was swifter, but Raymond’s trashtalk was amazing), enjoyed the less-experimental side of theater, and could even have a decent time at a dry library lecture (Kevin had felt a little guilty for how insider-y it was to his field, but Raymond was either actually interested in the topic or eager to impress.)

Raymond continued to be an excellent kisser, who graciously backed away at the last moment. Kevin had started to wonder if he was going to have to be handsy, and whiny, to have a chance at more than kissing.

Kevin had gotten busy, but he hadn’t wanted to cancel on Raymond, so they were spending an evening on Kevin’s couch, surrounded by books and papers. Kevin was lengthwise on the couch, back propped up on Raymond. Raymond had started to drink, which Kevin took as a good sign.

“You’re probably wondering --” Raymond started.  
  
“I am,” Kevin said, without letting Raymond finish.  
  
Raymond made an amused noise. Instead of prefacing the topic at all, he barreled right in. “I’m not a casual person. I don’t have casual relationships.”

Kevin sat up properly, put down his book, looked at Raymond, and nodded. Kevin’s mind was moving very fast and Raymond was speaking slowly, so it was all out of synch, but Kevin picked up that Raymond was using words like _exclusivity_.

“You want someone to go steady with,” Kevin said playfully. Then he turned more serious. “That was flippant of me. That’s a very practical idea.”

Goodness, Raymond thought. Kevin knew the way straight to his heart.  
  
Raymond extended an explanatory hand. “And I like you very much.”

Kevin wrapped his hand around it. “And I like _you_ very much.”

Raymond took out a packet of paper, and put it on the coffee table between them. “Here are my most-recent screening results, information on previous partners, and two personal references.”  
  
Kevin’s eyes went wide. “Oh, goodness, yes, of course, I have -- something similar --”  
  
Kevin got up and went to the pile of papers in the corner. This was far too many emotions at once. He was giddy (Raymond did actually want to sleep with him, confirmed), nauseous (he was certainly going to die one day, but _certainly not yet_ ), perturbed (where _was_ the thing he was looking for, anyway) and relieved (this was going to work out, Raymond was just being safe, _Raymond was safe_ ).  
  
Kevin found the correct paper and handed it to Raymond. “This is recent. It was awful -- the experience, not the results, I’m fine,” Kevin rambled. “And in the past year I’ve only had sex with...just this one asshole.” Kevin immediately regretted the literal-ness of that statement.

“It _was_ awful,” Raymond concurred. “The clinic, I mean. I wouldn’t know about your...previous...whathaveyou.”

Raymond would later tell him that he’d thought Kevin must have had a slew of other lovers, given how good-looking he was. Raymond would then describe Kevin’s temporary speechlessness as _flabbergasted by flattery_.

“Ugh, ex talk,” Kevin said, attempting self-deprecation. “Look at me, bringing the room down.” He would have taken the hit for anything at all, in that moment, if it let him change the subject.

“I think you light _up_ a room.”

Kevin turned playful again. “Are you trying to seduce me?”  
  
“No,” Raymond deadpanned. “I am _successfully_ seducing you.”

And Raymond -- who was a good detective -- had been _sleuthing out what he liked_. He surmised -- and he was _very right_ \-- that Kevin wanted to be pinned up against the wall and kissed until he melted, but then also taken tenderly to bed, to spend much of the first time gazing and exploring, with firm and attentive touch.  
  
Kevin loved the look of Raymond’s lips on his cock. He stroked the side of Raymond’s face with his fingers, adoring the very idea that this was happening, and then tossed back his head and sighed at how it felt.

When Kevin reciprocated, he kissed and nibbled the soft skin where legs met hips, and lay cheek on Raymond's bare lap. _Reverence for the unsullied holiness of thighs_ , he remembered, in Greek. He rolled his tongue over the head of Raymond’s cock, teasing at first and then in earnest, savoring it before taking him in his mouth.

Raymond made sure they still went out, which they did, except now they always ended up at one of their apartments afterward. Kevin, who had never really cared for music, began to feel every note of Raymond’s old Gershwin records.

When he was overwhelmed by sensation, Kevin would blank out as if in a trance, and come back speaking the wrong language. The first time it happened, Kevin was in Raymond’s bed, and he was trying to ask for something. _Cēveō. Pathicus_. Kevin had learned the Latin sexual terminology during his formative years, and now he could hardly remember any English words at all.

Raymond’s voice was warm in his ear. He did not stop his hands. “What are you trying to tell me?”  
  
_Put it inside me,_ Kevin said, in French. _Be careful. It is a novelty._  
  
_I am be careful because you ask it to me,_ Raymond said, also in French. His syntax was a mess. It did not matter.

Raymond, conscientious and thorough, warmed him up, kissed him deeply, pushed and pulled with his hands until the tension in his body unfurled and gave up. Kevin felt Raymond inside of him and gave in to it, the intensity of desire and being desired, and let his mind go.

Kevin came to the next morning ( _dēfutūta_ , exhausted from fucking). He observed, mortified, that he had left bite marks in Raymond’s shoulder.  
  
“Well,” Raymond said, running his fingers over the indentation, amused. “ _You’ve_ certainly...left an impression.”

How dare you, Kevin laughed. How _dare_ you be so hilarious.

Kevin became more animated giving lectures, speaking with his hands more often, laughing easily. He was happy, and he had stopped trying not to show it. Throughout his schooling he had taken great care not to “sit like a girl,” not to prop his head on his hands and gaze and daydream. He did not care any more. He felt as though nothing could hurt him. He was acting out, even, because Raymond made him feel gorgeous.

Raymond struggled to avoid cliche while telling the truth. He had, truth be told, never felt this way about anyone. He would wait a while before saying so overtly.

Raymond sometimes needed taking care of after a long day; sometimes this was a shoulder massage, and sometimes it was even quieter. Sometimes Kevin would fall asleep reading, and would wake up in bed, wrapped tightly in a blanket. Once, when Raymond had to leave for work suddenly, he left a note of apology on the bedside table, accompanied by a stack of Kevin’s favorite brand of notebook. Kevin covered his mouth, nearly overcome with emotion.

Raymond was equally attentive to Kevin’s bedroom preferences. He had Kevin stretch out naked, flicked his eyes approvingly over his body, and watched intently as Kevin stroked himself, observing how long and how fast his hand moved, so that he could use this information later, for best results.

Kevin puzzled a little bit over Raymond, captivated because his buttons-to-push were unusual. Raymond, who got teary at the orchestra and horny at the art museum (it had been an architecture exhibit). He was attracted to fine things, some of them inanimate, a lot of them Kevin, but Kevin had a feeling there was more.

Kevin was sure there was at least one theme he could uncover via a close read of Raymond, and he surprised himself when he figured it out. Raymond wasn’t a small mountain of rage who needed to be soothed with sex. (Though, that was a fun game to play sometimes, Raymond’s growl in his ear and his hand just barely on his throat, which was all right, because Raymond wouldn’t ever _actually_ hurt him.)

No, something clicked about Raymond when Kevin was thinking about the absurd competition for validation Kevin was seeing among his peers. Raymond’s work -- and Raymond’s _heart_ \-- largely went uncelebrated. He didn’t have anyone to tell him he was doing a good job.

Kevin experimented, starting with more small compliments (was that a new pocket square?). Then the next time Raymond had his lips on his cock he allowed himself to make much more noise, a ridiculous amount, and then cradled Raymond’s cheek, kissed it, told him how really very good he was at that, and watched Raymond light up.

He asked Raymond if he could do _him_ , and that, too, was met with smiles, with kisses. Kevin had understood something about Raymond wanting to be the object of desire sometimes. Raymond didn’t take it the way Kevin took it, Kevin with his head thrown back and eyes closed, breathing loudly; Raymond took it once in a while, with lidded eyes and an easy smile and unbroken eye contact that said _yes, I too receive pleasure_. He held Kevin on top of him until Kevin was spent, and shivering.

Kevin realized that while he wouldn’t ever want to show it, Raymond may have in fact been _intimidated_ by his academic friends, his arts-and-culture people, and made efforts to include him, to talk up his accomplishments.  
  
“This is Raymond,” Kevin said, in a voice that said, _and I adore him_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ray holt paints a gray rock every painting class because he considers regular still life (bowl of fruit, antique vase) a little too sexy and gets embarrassed_


	5. Shouts and Murmurs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing a significant other to other people, including siblings, and...co-workers.

**Winter/Spring, 1988**

Raymond’s sister Debbie, whose flair for the dramatic was growing, yelled. She yelled in surprise, not in unkindness, but it was loud enough to wake up half the neighborhood. And that had just been over the phone.

“Raymond! I am coming over there to celebrate my new job, and you are _introducing me to your boyfriend!_ ”

They met in a nice, but not-too-expensive restaurant. (Kevin and Raymond had been going over their dating budget, and had made revisions.) Kevin was tickled.  
  
“A professor?” Debbie gaped. “Ray-Ray, where do I get myself a _professor_?”

“Ray-Ray,” Kevin repeated, trying very hard not to grin.

Debbie faux-pouted. “All the good ones are gonna be gay, aren’t they.” She looked meaningfully at Raymond. Raymond put up his hands, defenseless against this.  
  
“Sure, but not all the gay ones are going to be good,” Kevin said.  
  
Debbie gestured with her fork. “See? Sass!” She swooped the fork back to her plate. “I like you.” She looked at Kevin’s plate. “Long fingers, hmmm, Raymond?”  
  
Raymond was embarrassed. Kevin was entertained. “I like her.”

After dinner, privately, Raymond apologized for Debbie. “Clearly she and I have our differences.”  
  
Kevin thought of Raymond weeping at the symphony, and then, after reading a negative review, talking about it nonstop for a week. “Clearly,” Kevin said, with amusement. “You’re _nothing_ alike.”

Meeting Kevin’s brother, Marty, was decidedly quieter. Marty was looking at dental schools, and Kevin had encouraged him to come into the city, have lunch with him and Raymond. Kevin wasn’t sure how his formerly rough-and-tumble little brother was going to be, but he seemed to have turned into a reasonable adult sometime in the interim, which Kevin appreciated.

Raymond extolled about the theater for thirty minutes. Marty looked charmed, or at least faked it passably, which Kevin was grateful for.

“Hey, thanks for inviting me,” Marty said, as Kevin walked him back toward the train. “I never felt like we were close.” He squinted a little. “Does Mom know you’re dating a black guy?”  
  
Kevin furrowed his brow. “You think _that’s_ the issue?”  
  
Marty half-shrugged, guilty. “They’ve been complaining about how the neighborhood’s changing, saying they might move into a gated community. It’s...not good.”

Kevin sighed. “I haven’t talked to her. She will eventually find out...that I’m dating someone who possibly knows more about classical music than she or Dad does. I’d appreciate it if you let me tell her.”

“No worries.” Marty gave him a full hug and a clap on the back and headed back toward the train station, leaving Kevin speechless at this outpouring of affection.

There was a faculty reception at the end of the term, and Kevin very much wanted to bring Raymond with him. It was a rather buttoned-up affair, but Raymond appreciated that sort of thing, didn’t he? And Kevin, well, perhaps he wanted to show _certain people_ that yes in fact he was dating someone, and that someone was fantastic, and _neither of them were embarrassed about it, Gary_.

Kevin beamed as he introduced Raymond, hand on the small of his back. He thought it went well --  mostly, at least, because they appreciated that Raymond was genuinely hilarious, and only a little bit due to an over-exaggerated friendliness at finding someone so _articulate_.

Lenny from the psych department, who was very into the idea of human sexuality as a social construct, gave Kevin a knowing look, and congratulations under his breath. _A man in uniform? You lucky sumbitch._

Afterward, Raymond told him what gossip-worthy deductions he had made from observing Kevin’s colleagues. “Mary Anne hates her husband. Billings is plagiarizing his research. Leonard is bisexual.”

Kevin laughed at the last one. “He’s fairly open about that.”  Kevin edited his words slightly, for Raymond’s benefit. “He thinks you’re cute.”

But Raymond seemed grouchy afterward, and when Kevin pressed him, Raymond said that he had felt talked down to several times, in ways Kevin hadn’t noticed. They had explained things to him that any schoolchild would know, Raymond said. In Kevin’s opinion, these were not things that any schoolchild would know, but Raymond had impeccable standards, which he respected.

 

Which was, in part, why Kevin had wanted to pay back the favor, when a similar opportunity arose within the police department.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Raymond said. “They are a bit...coarse.”

Kevin said he wanted to go. Being a part of public life was important, wasn’t it?

As soon as they entered the party, Kevin’s heart sank. This was clearly a circle completely uninterested in letting either of them in.

Madeleine regarded Kevin, as he stood next to Holt. “Whaddya know,” she said, in her chalkboard-scrape of an accent. “He was telling the truth.”  
  
When someone else sidled over to talk to Raymond, and another detective shouted over to him. “Hey Cooper. You outta your juris-DICK-tion?”  
  
“Leave them the hell alone, Larry,” said Madeleine, suddenly indignant. “Don’t use this as a cover for being a lousy cop.”

Later, Madeleine would count this as “sticking her neck out” for him, and would hold a grudge against Raymond for never acknowledging it. Raymond, unimpressed, would argue that Madeleine merely wanted an excuse to call Larry a lousy cop (which, they both agreed, he was).

Fitch, another homicide detective, approached Kevin from the side when he was alone, and uninvited started to tell him the lurid details of a murder case (gross), which escalated into using a term that _nobody_ else was allowed to call Kevin, and a sexual threat. Kevin excused himself.

“Raymond,” Kevin said, as forcefully as he could, wanting to tap him on the shoulder but not wanting to even touch him, here. “Raymond, I need to leave.”

Kevin was quiet on the way back. When they reached Raymond’s apartment, Kevin said, “Excuse me. I need to go vomit.”

“How much did you have to drink?” Raymond said, concerned, when Kevin returned from the bathroom. He already had a glass of water ready.  
  
“It wasn’t the alcohol,” Kevin explained. Then, with the same tight-lipped, blank expression he would use when under threat, Kevin repeated exactly what Fitch had said to him.

Raymond was aghast. “If you had said something --”

“What, you would have decked him? I don’t want you to deck him. I want nothing to do with these people.”

“I’m sorry.”  
  
“No, I’m sorry,” Kevin said, not sorry. “I’m sorry I’ve been taking not being surrounded by mouth-breathers all day for granted.”

Raymond thought. “It was Fitch, you said? He’s a dirty cop.”  
  
“Oh my god, don’t tell me that.”  
  
“I mean that he’s been _taking bribes_. I can get him _fired_. It didn’t seem worth doing before, but I will do it now.”

“Have they been bothering _you_ like that? _I’ll_ deck them.”  
  
“That would be extremely foolish. Do not assault a police officer.” Raymond paused. “Ah, you were being non-literal.”

 _Fuck my delicate constitution_ , Kevin thought, at his unhappy stomach. “Do they speak that way to you?”

“Not so graphically, usually. Typically it takes the form of being overlooked. Or mocked. Or ignored.”

“I don’t understand how you do it.”  
  
“I believe in what I do. I believe that I will outlast the more dastardly of them and make a profound positive impact on my community. I believe I already have.”

Kevin looked at Raymond’s face, which he loved, for a long few moments, and sighed. “Great. I’m dating a superhero.”

“Obviously you don’t have to have any further interactions with my colleagues.”  
  
“Good. Because I won’t.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They don’t have the photo from that evening framed and displayed until they re-discover it many years later. By then, it serves more as evidence of the longevity of their relationship (and a photo in which, Kevin notes, he still has all of his hair).


	6. On Virgil and Vigils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love in the face of adversity.

**Summer, 1988**

Kevin was busy with his Masters thesis, and perpetually stressed. If his Masters thesis wasn’t strong enough, it could jeopardize his spot in the PhD program. If he didn’t get a spot in the PhD program, there went his career.

He and Raymond had been nearly living together, by default, even though it was inconvenient. That is, he was at Raymond’s more often than he was at his own apartment. Kevin found himself venting about department drama, about things that didn’t matter, and once, about Gary.

Raymond looked concerned. “I didn’t realize you two worked together.”  
  
Kevin could have sworn Raymond should have known this. He wasn’t keeping any secrets. And they didn’t work together, just in the same building, and only sometimes.

“Yes I’ve put it together now,” Raymond said. “He was the young man who wouldn’t look me in the eyes at the faculty reception. I had previously attributed it to garden-variety racism.”

“I’m sorry,” said Kevin. He meant it as sympathy toward the racism charge, not an apology for Gary, who wasn’t his fault.

Kevin knew Raymond’s last relationship ended on suspicion of infidelity. He tried not to be too concerned by something so obviously incorrect. Gary was only a visiting fellow, so soon enough he would be headed back to Indiana, or wherever Garys came from.

“It’s not a problem,” said Raymond, who meant Gary. He ended the conversation by returning to his newspaper. Kevin didn’t believe him.

 

Kevin had also been spending long hours at the college library, often until after dark. That night, he became aware of a police cruiser behind him on his way back to the subway. Alarmed, he veered around a corner. The car veered too. He stopped, and the car stopped. Kevin’s heart pounded.

A familiar figure got out. “What the hell, Raymond,” Kevin hissed. “This is a terrifying thing to do. And there is no _way_ this area is within your jurisdiction.”  
  
“You need to stay calm.”  
  
“ _I_ need to stay calm! No, no I don’t.”  
  
“ _Stop gesticulating_ ,” Raymond over-enunciated.

“I’ll gesticulate as much as I like.” Kevin strode down the block, demonstrating.

Raymond followed. “Stop before I restrain you for your own safety.”  
  
Kevin rounded on him. “Excuse me? Excuse me? No. Absolutely fucking not.” Raymond with a squad car and _actual_ handcuffs, Raymond who was likely _actually armed_ , was not a safe Raymond, and Kevin was livid that he had to explain this.  

“If you lay a hand on me that is a serious violation of trust within this relationship,” Kevin continued. “It is especially not something you should do just because your position lets you get away with it.”

Raymond looked pained, which Kevin didn’t understand. “I will leave you alone if you want me to. I am asking you one last time to come with me.”  
  
“I would prefer some space, thanks.” Kevin waited for Raymond to drive off in an opposite direction, grabbed the nearest pay phone, wiped his eyes, and dialed the first person he thought of.

 

Vicky, from high school, still wore her coke-bottle glasses. Now she lived in the city with her lover, Julie, who had a buzz cut and bicep tattoos. “Oh my gosh, yes, you need somewhere to go? Come over,” Vicky said, over the phone. Kevin must have sounded deeply distressed, he thought, given how quickly she offered to help, how tightly she hugged him when he walked in the door.

Vicky sat him on the couch, and he started to explain how Raymond had been tailing him. (Julie, who had been cleaning up some painting supplies in the corner, did not quite know what to make of this; she visibly softened when Kevin started mentioning a boyfriend, and tensed up again when he mentioned said boyfriend was a cop.) Kevin was about to launch into how the only explanation he could think of was that Raymond thought he was _cheating_ on him, with Gary of all people, which was a fundamentally insane thing to think, since Raymond was obviously strong and good and messing that up would be so stupid, except he hadn’t been strong and good today, and oh god he was actually going to cry now, when Julie interrupted.

“You go to Columbia, right? That’s near Central Park West?”  
  
“Sort of? I guess?”

“Ohhhhh,” Vicky said slowly. “You haven’t heard. There’s been…” She trailed off, making motions with her hands.  
  
“Murders,” said Julie. “There’s been murders.”  
  
Hate crimes, they explained. Supposedly a bunch of youths had done it, and most of the suspects had not yet been found. One gay man had been killed and two more had been badly injured. There was a vigil tomorrow. Julie’s paints were for making protest signs.

Kevin put his head in his hands. “I’m an idiot,” he said, voice muffled by his hands. Raymond had been trying to protect him, and he had had no idea what was going on. Kevin curled into a ball on the couch.

Stay here, Vicky said. It’s late.  
  
Kevin called Raymond’s apartment, and got no answer. He called the precinct, and got unhelpful sarcasm from the night shift receptionist. He didn’t sleep.  
  
  


Raymond met him at the vigil the following afternoon. Raymond started to apologize, and Kevin stopped him. “No, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t understand what you were trying to do.”

“I should have explained,” Raymond said. “I was afraid. You thought I could have hurt you. I deeply regret that.”

More people were arriving, crowding the sidewalk. Someone had started to sing.

“I should be afraid,” Kevin said. “But I’m not. I’m heartened that so many people are here. I am profoundly angry that it’s necessary.”

Kevin thought of the poet Virgil, who he had been reading a lot of, lately.

_Mors aurem vellens. ‘Vivite,’ ait, ‘venio.’_

_Death twitches my ear. "Live," he says. "I am coming."_

“I love you,” Kevin said.  
  
“I love you too.”

  
  


Kevin went back to Raymond’s that night, and passed out from exhaustion almost immediately. They met for lunch a few days later, and ate outside, on a park bench. Kevin talked about how he was suddenly far less concerned about his thesis defense, which was coming along fine, and about the steps afterward.

Raymond said he was very excited about Kevin’s future prospects. He almost brought up that it would be fascinating to see Kevin write a book, but they were in public, and he didn’t want to make things too sexual.

Then Kevin started talking about what he would do after Columbia, and Raymond was confused.

Kevin explained his current adjunct work was only for graduate students; afterwards, he would need to find something else. “As you might have guessed, I would strongly prefer not to move out to West Podunk, although people do.”  
  
“I’m glad _West Podunk_ is off the table.”

“And obviously I would love to stay in the city. But there isn’t going to be a position open at Columbia until someone in the department retires or dies.”  
  
“Perhaps they will,” Raymond said, in a tone which was slightly too optimistic.

Kevin made an effort not to cringe, as he was still being kind. “There are several good schools upstate, perhaps they’ll be hiring by the time I’m finished.”

“Upstate?” Raymond said, trying very hard not to show worry.

“Perhaps I can find somewhere on a train line. We can cross that bridge when we come to it,” Kevin said.

Raymond thought about bridges, and how he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to throw any of Kevin’s possessions into the East River. He hoped he never would.  
  
Kevin wanted to give him something, now, instead of in the uncertain future. “If my paper gets accepted to this upcoming seminar, I’ll have the opportunity to go to Paris,” Kevin said. “If I do, you should come visit Paris with me.”

Raymond beamed. _That is are would be sounds romantic_ , he said, in his tortured French.

Kevin smiled rather than correct him. “There’s also my mother’s birthday coming up soon. I should see about you coming up to my parents’.”  
  
Raymond intertwined his fingers in Kevin’s, and gazed at him. He thought about how fortunate he was, that Kevin had chosen to stay here with him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Raymond saw a boy on a bike coasting by. He reminded Raymond of his younger self, in a way. For a moment he felt at peace, and wistful.

 _"Faggots!"_ the boy on the bike yelled as he sailed by.

Raymond snorted. So much for that.

He focused on Kevin again. “I want to continue to be with you,” he said. _I am not ready to think about how much I do not wish to be without you_ , he did not say.

“We can make that work,” Kevin said. “I am certain of it.”

And then Kevin leaned forward and kissed him, despite the park being observably full of workers on lunch break, tourists, youths, college students, and two competing hot dog vendors.  
  
_Vivite._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and thank you especially to lalalalalawhy for listening to me talk endlessly about this and other things.
> 
> nerd-husbands.tumblr.com  
> secrets-of-luftnarp.tumblr.com


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